Clarke wants more from West Brom players

Steve Clarke has called on West Brom's players to raise their game and get their first win of the season against Sunderland on Saturday.

Published

19 September 2013

West Brom have struggled this season, picking up just two points from their opening four Premier League matches, form that sees them in the relegation zone.

Goals have also been hard to come by for Clarke's men - they have scored once so far - and the Scot is hopeful he will start to see improvements.

They entertain a Sunderland side on Saturday who are also yet to record a victory, and they are the only team to have a worse record than West Brom.

Clarke knows it could be a battle of attrition between the two sides but insisted his players were ready to take the game to their opponents.

"(We are) two teams struggling for a little bit of early season form," he told the club's official website.

"Both teams will be looking at the match and think it's a chance to get the season up and running.

"We're at home, we're the team that have to be on the front foot, (and) we have to force it from the first minute of the game to make sure we get the right result for ourselves and our supporters."

Clarke is hoping to have Stephane Sessegnon available for the clash against his former club after the Benin international was granted a work permit.

The 29-year-old - who signed for £5million on transfer deadline day - is expected to give West Brom more movement and creativity - something Clarke admits they have struggled with.

"(We've had) two good solid away performances," he added.

"It's maybe a bit indicative of where we are just now, we're finding it more difficult to force the game and create chances.

"It's something we're working on, we're looking to address and hopefully you'll see the outcome on Saturday.

"I think there's a lot of teams in the league who know that every point is vital, they know it's important to have a good start, not too many teams have opened up and had a real go.

"We know that we haven’t scored enough goals, only one, it's not a good enough return but we know there's a lot of games and a lot of points to play for, we'll attack the game at the weekend and try and get three points."